barcelona, 2003. my best friend and i, wandering around the city, eating good food, and enjoying long conversations and comfortable silences in equal measure. when i think of barcelona i remember: mild winter weather; gaudi architecture, crazy and beautiful; and donuts.
kat grew up in singapore, a fan of all things american, especially the food. she loved chex mix, oreos, and was heartbroken when dunkin’ donuts pulled its franchise out of singapore somewhere in the mid 90s. you can imagine her reaction when we came across a dunkin’ donuts store just up the road from our hostel in barcelona, and how we frequented it in our week there (at least once a day).
one of my favourite memories of barcelona came at the end of our trip. we sat in our dorm room the night before we were due to fly to london, tipped all our money onto kat’s bunk and counted it up. we put aside the amount we needed for bus fare to the airport, and then with the remaining money, worked out how many dunkin’ donuts we could buy. in my memory it went something like this:
kat: (excited) ok. how many donuts do you want?
me: none. i just want coffee.
kat: (more excited) ok! (counts money) we can get a box!
and then she started working out what flavours she was going to get while i sat there witnessing her glee with amusement and love.
early next morning, we shouldered our backpacks and trudged up la ramblas to dunkin’ donuts. we had, of course, checked the night before to make sure that it would be open. (clearly, in barcelona, donuts are a start-of-the-day priority.) i sat at one of the tables guarding our packs, willing my brain to wake up, while kat queued to the spend the last of our euros on this longed-for confectionery. she returned, my coffee in one hand and a box of a dozen donuts in the other.
i took this photo at the airport while we were waiting for our flight to be called. kat was rationing her donuts; i can’t remember what number this one was. i do remember watching her as she ate them; the furrow of her brow as she contemplated which flavour to sacrifice first; the look of happiness as she savoured each precious mouthful. it was the face of joy that only a favourite food can bring. (i wear it when eating chocolate, often.)
it still tickles me every time i think of that day.
Submitted by Estee
This is one of my favorite pictures of Chris (I’m in there too). This was the weekend in the Berkshires when we first said how we felt about each other. I feel like this picture says it all… the second day we were there it was pretty cloudy, but as soon as we decided to go apple picking in this orchard, the sun came out for a brief second. all of a sudden, the trees were lit up in this beautiful light, a garden of Eden. this picture says it all because we’re walking side by side, like we’d done a million times before this picture was taken, but everything is different. This image represents to me the beginning of everything….
